A Code of Honor
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Tom Riddle starts in on Harry's Potions tutoring and it goes about as well as one could expect. Side fic to "When Harry Met Tom"


**Author's Note: A warning that this is a side fic to When Harry Met Tom, and if you haven't read that you'll lack much of the context.**

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"Now, Harry, when I say the word dice, right here, what are you imagining? Because right now you are very clearly slicing the ingredients."

Harry was done, no, she had been done weeks ago. Yet here she was, in a literal dungeon of evil hidden beneath Hogwarts with Tom Riddle, straight O student and dark lord in training extraordinaire who had taken it upon himself to get her the best damned grade in Potion she'd ever received.

Now, Harry just had the low bar of getting a decent grade, something that had never really happened with Snape. Of course, Snape took every opportunity to take the slightest mistake she'd made and use it as excuse to fail her sorry ass along with Neville. Thus far, with Slughorn, Harry had a better grade in Potions then she had ever had in her life.

But apparently that wasn't good enough for the likes of Tom Marvolo Riddle, no, no, he wanted to take five years' worth of lackluster education provided by the giant bat and make her, oh she didn't know, Hermione caliber. Which, it just wasn't going to happen, period.

Sure, Harry hated Snape, but she was pretty sure that even without his help she wouldn't have found Potions a particularly inspiring subject.

This current tutoring session with the devil himself was only solidifying that.

"Why does it make a difference?" Harry asked, her head thunking on the ancient oak table that Slytherin had squirreled away in his super secret potions lab of doom (to the right of his super secret library of doom).

"It makes a very large difference," Tom said, motioning towards her cauldron again as well as the open textbook in front of them, "The difference between slicing and dicing can result in catastrophic disaster."

"I don't see why, the thing ends up in tiny pieces either way," Harry said with a sigh, "Honestly, this is why Potions is a garbage subject."

"Potions is a very important subject and one that any sane person would do their best to be proficient in," Riddle contradicted in that usual tone of his when he got worked up and academic. It was almost like Hermione when she was lecturing on the benefits of studying and how Harry and Ron would be lazy idiots forever and regret when Hermione left them for bigger and brighter things, but not quite. There was the same exasperation there, the same disbelief and irritation, but there was also an odd hint of pragmatism that Hermione usually lacked.

Hermione studied because she couldn't picture a world in which she wasn't studying, Riddle, Harry discovered, always had a reason.

"Do you truly wish to rely on someone else brewing your potions?" he asked her with raised eyebrows, as if she was being willfully stupid and it was just so very hard on him to reason with her.

When at least Harry was destined to become a giant snake man after having been a wraith for ten years. Really, she almost wished she could tell him all about his glorious destiny of Voldemort because then she could make it quite clear that he had no room in any situation to ever judge her.

Harry, you're not doing too hot in Potions. Well I didn't possess Quirrel and live a turban filled with garlic only to end up with a melted face.

Harry, your hair is a mess. Well, gee, I didn't stuff a memory of myself into a diary and use it to possess an eleven-year-old girl, frame Hagrid a second time, and release a basilisk only to lose to a twelve-year-old girl in glasses.

Harry, the only things you're good at is beating up Voldemort, playing Quidditch, and not dying. Well at least I'm good at not bloody dying unlike some people I know.

But she could never tell him because he'd never believe her, it could corrupt the timeline, and offering Tom Riddle any hint of the future would ultimately lead to disaster. So, she just had to sit there and sulk.

"I don't know, most people seem to," Harry said, mostly because she'd never really thought about it that way or been particularly insulted when she'd had to drink Madame Pomfrey's potions. Sure, she supposed she also always had to drink Snape's potions, but as much as he loathed her, she didn't think he actively wanted to poison her.

Well, if he did then he'd missed a lot of opportunities to kill her off already, so Harry was willing to take that chance. More, she was surviving teenage Tom Riddle who had made an unbreakable vow not to kill her, so clearly her chances of surviving anything else were quite high.

"What if you're in a situation in which no one is present?" Tom Riddle asked pointedly.

"What, like if I'm trapped on a desert island?" Harry scoffed before dismissing him with a wave of her hand, "If I'm trapped in the middle of a bloody desert island, and can't figure out apparition, then I'm buggered anyway."

She'd probably find two coconuts, name them Ron and Hermione, and pretend they were bickering with each other while she hunted down fish and tried to build a boat.

"What if you're in a situation where you can trust no one? Tom Riddle asked, although he was really hissing in anger now as opposed to asking.

"If I'm in a prisoner of war camp, can't escape, and am being fed potions, then I'm buggered anyway," Harry repeated as if Riddle was the one being unquestionably dim, "Besides, I'm unusually good at surviving."

"Unusually good at surviving," he repeated dully, as if it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. Which, it kind of was, she always thought the whole girl-who-lived thing was a mouthful but it was still true.

"Sure, everyone has a talent, mine just happens to be certain death," Harry said with a shrug, "Well, that and quidditch, I'm very good at quidditch."

"So, because you're unusually good at surviving you see no reason to become competent enough to avoid potential poisoning." Tom finished for her, lacing his hands together and giving her a very pointed look.

"Well, no, it means that I don't think I have to be paranoid enough to believe I'm about to be poisoned," Harry said, although now that she thought about it she was wondering why some Death Eater or another hadn't attempted to just do her in by poisoning the treacle tart. Sure, it'd be anticlimactic, but if Harry was such a large problem for Death Eaters and company you'd think they'd have tried that by now.

Much easier than a smear campaign in the Prophet.

"That is the worst reasoning I've ever heard," he summarized.

"No, it's not," Harry protested, "I just happen to think that the vast majority of the world is not out to get me."

"You seemed to think it'd take nothing less than an unbreakable vow for me to not try and dispose of you," Tom reminded her even as he turned back to the Potions book, waiting for her to retry with the ingredients and dice as opposed to slice.

"Yeah, but you'd never poison me," Harry said with a small laugh, honestly, she didn't think that was Voldemort's thing.

"You accused me of planning to stick a knife in your gut."

Harry waved away his irritated and insulted expression and explained, "Yeah but you'd be there for that you have… Oh, I don't know if I'd call it a code of honor, but you'd want to be there in person. Someone else might try to do away with me under the table, one of your yes-men probably, but you, no you'd want to be there and see the whites of my eyes."

He paused for a moment, simply stared at her as if he was at a loss for words, then admitted, "I'm not sure if I'm flattered or insulted."

"I'm not sure if you should be either," Harry admitted, because she wouldn't really call it honorable given that they were talking about her demise, but it was… Something. Which, she'd never really thought about it that way before. She'd been too focused on the fact that he was trying to kill her period, which, sure that was bad but…

But he'd always insisted on battling her face to face, even when it was only a memory of him in a diary.

"Well, as always, I'm slightly disturbed how much thought you've put into my scheming your demise," he said, which Harry couldn't help but laugh at the irony of that, "Still, I'm glad you've prescribed me some honor."

"You're welcome?" Harry asked, because it was a question, because she still wasn't sure how she'd gotten into this sort of friendly relationship with Tom Riddle anyway. It still seemed so surreal to her, really.

He leaned forward with a smile, so that his lips were next to her ear, he breathed and said softly as he laced his hands through hers and moved them over a new set of ingredients and the sharp Potions' knife, "Now dice, Harry, not slice."

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 **Author's Note: Written for the 600th review of "When Harry Met Tom" by ichigoislove who asked for a fic where Harry sasses Tom, so we get their typical style of banter.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**


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